- Naked, gilded Trump statue goes on display at EU Parliament
Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]
“A gilded statue of US President Donald Trump naked went on display in the European Parliament building in Strasbourg on Tuesday. Danish artist Jens Galschiot is exhibiting the satirical statue, titled ‘Orange Plague’ and also known as ‘King of Injustice’, at the parliament’s headquarters in the eastern French city. It shows the president sitting naked on the shoulders of a much smaller man. In his hand, he holds a long golf club. Including its pedestal, the statue is around 2.5 metres tall and, according to the artist, is coated with 23-carat gold. An orange cloth covering it was removed when it was unveiled on Tuesday. The statue stands at one of the parliament’s busiest intersections connecting two buildings. It is scheduled to remain on display through Thursday.” (10/08/26)
- UK: Police accept Andrew search warrants were unlawful, court hears
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Thames Valley Police has accepted that the search warrants it used to search Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s homes earlier this year were unlawful, the High Court has heard. The force accepted that the information given to the Old Bailey about warrants relating to their decision to search the former Prince Andrew’s Sandringham home and the Royal Lodge in Windsor was incorrect. Andrew was arrested by Thames Valley Police in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office. He denies any wrongdoing. The warrants were issued before his arrest and his lawyers are challenging their lawfulness. … His arrest in February arose after the US Department of Justice published documents which suggested he had forwarded confidential information to the convicted sex offender when Mountbatten-Windsor was a UK trade envoy in 2010.” (10/08/26)
- Judge rules Tennessee must preserve evidence in Christa Pike killing attempt
Source: United Press International
“A judge ruled that the state must preserve all evidence in the botched [killing] of Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike. Pike’s attorneys argued for the order saying the evidence would be relevant in case the state tries to [kill] her again. … Judge I’Ashea Myles ordered the evidence be preserved, and gave a long list of specific items to be saved.” (10/07/26)
- US regime suspends Microsoft, others from foreign workers applying for green cards, accuses company of visa “abuse”
Source: Fox News
“Vice President JD Vance and Labor Department officials announced Thursday that the Trump administration is suspending Microsoft, Adobe and others from a key employment-based, green-card program, accusing major tech firms and outsourcing companies of abusing the visa system at the expense of American workers. … Vance said Microsoft laid off 6,000 American workers last year while benefiting from 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards, calling it a ‘scandalous system.'” (10/08/26)
- India: Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi detained over election chief protest
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi has been detained for the third time in two days during a protest demanding the resignation of the election chief over a controversial revision of voter lists. Gandhi and other opposition lawmakers were apprehended by police on Wednesday as they marched towards Jantar Mantar, a designated protest site in India’s capital, New Delhi. … Opposition parties, their student units and the “Cockroach” youth movement have been demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, accusing the poll body he heads of benefiting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.” (10/08/26)
- New US regime indictment charges Maduro with torture
Source: SFGate
“U.S. authorities charged former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro with conspiring to torture his fellow citizens in order to maintain his hold on power. The new indictment, unsealed Thursday, adds pressure on the ousted authoritarian leader already fighting drug trafficking offenses. Maduro, who was previously charged with participating in a conspiracy to send cocaine into the U.S., is now also facing allegations of human rights abuses during his reign as president of the oil-rich South American nation.” [editor’s note: Unless Venezuela is a US state or territory, there’s no US jurisdiction to try those allegations – TLK] (10/08/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/wife-of-ex-venezuelan-president-nicol-s-maduro-22467856.php
- DNC sues Trump administration over taxpayer-funded TV ads promoting president
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“The Democratic National Committee on Wednesday sued President Donald Trump’s administration for recent television advertisements that promoted his political message while costing taxpayers millions of dollars. The complaint, filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that the ads are illegal government-sponsored propaganda and accuses Trump of personally directing them. It asks the court to declare the ads illegal and stop the use of federal funds to pay for them. … The spots, which began airing in September, already have cost more than $12 million to run, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact, and a total of $20 million in Homeland Security Department funding has been tapped to pay for them.” (10/07/26)
https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20261007-dnc-sues-trump-administration-taxpayer-funded-tv-ads
- Annual Fundraiser Update
Hey, everyone …
Thanks to supporters CH and GB! Their contributions yesterday, totaling $75, bring our annual fundraiser total to $245.50!
Our goal is $5,503. Supporter GL has pledged to “match funds” for half of that, meaning we have to raise $2,751.50. We’re about 9% of the way there. Please help us get to 100% today!
https://news.rationalreview.com/support-rrnd
We only run one fundraiser a year. This is that fundraiser.
After 24 years (this December) as Rational Review News Digest, and another 12 years before that as Freedom News Daily and Libernet, I hope we’ve proven that we can and will reliably deliver your daily news and commentary update.
Please deliver on the financial support end, so we can continue that mission!
https://news.rationalreview.com/support-rrnd
And have a great day!
Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily - Naval drone hits oil tanker off Russian resort city Sochi, triggering massive blaze
Source: The Guardian
“An oil tanker off Russia’s Black Sea coast was struck by a naval drone, triggering a huge fire and black smoke cloud that blanketed parts of the resort city of Sochi, Russia’s transport ministry has said. The transport ministry said a Liberian-flagged tanker had been attacked and that ‘crude oil is burning openly in the waters of the Black Sea’. … A crew of 23 – all Indian citizens – had been rescued, it added. Russia and Ukraine have targeted commercial shipping around the Black Sea since the conflict began, and Russia has recently attacked grain vessels carrying Ukrainian goods near the coast of Romania. There was no comment from Kyiv on the attack.” (10/07/26)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/07/ukraine-drone-hits-oil-tanker-russia-sochi
- ICE gang members told to ramp up daily abductions despite GOP unease as midterms near
Source: CNN
“Immigration and Customs Enforcement leadership told [gang members] nationwide on Tuesday to increase immigration [abductions] by 1,000 more people daily, returning to a previous goal of 3,000 daily [abductions], according to two sources familiar with the verbal directive. It’s the latest sign of ongoing pressure on [gang members] as the Trump administration doubles down on its immigration crackdown despite some Republican unease over who the agency is targeting. ICE also recently released a contract solicitation to expand holding space at agency offices, citing ‘exceptionally high operational tempo with increased [abductions].'” (10/08/26)
https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/08/politics/ice-immigration-arrests
- US aircraft lost or damaged in Iran war nearly doubles in latest congressional report
Source: Military Times
“An updated report from the Congressional Research Service, or CRS, now lists 81 U.S. military aircraft as lost or damaged since the United States launched Operation Epic Fury against Iran on Feb. 28. That is nearly double the 42 aircraft the research service counted in May, as Defense News reported at the time. The Oct. 5 revision adds jets damaged in a September Iranian strike on a base in Jordan, helicopter losses drawn from a Pentagon inspector general report and a sharply higher count of lost Reaper drones. CRS cautions that the total is not a count of destroyed aircraft, noting, ‘Some damaged aircraft may have been returned to active service.'” (10/07/26)
- New York Fed: Tariff price increases can take a year to fully show up
Source: Axios
“Tariff inflation has a long tail. Higher import costs can ripple through U.S. supply chains, with effects on domestically produced goods emerging as much as a year later, according to Federal Reserve Bank of New York researchers. The inflation hit from 2025 tariffs is fading, but newer levies are still feeding through to prices as inflation is already too high for policymakers’ comfort. … The authors previously found that U.S. companies and consumers bore most tariff costs earlier this year — research that Trump economic officials sharply criticized. … The researchers estimate that President Trump’s tariffs added 2.9 percentage points to consumer goods inflation by February 2026 (excluding services and oil).” (10/07/26)
https://www.axios.com/2026/10/07/trump-tariffs-fed-inflation-prices
- Report: US ambassador to Greece sought bribe from MAGA donor
Source: Hindustan Times
“A former Kentucky Congressional candidate and well-known donor of Donald Trump’s MAGA has come under scrutiny after a report on his alleged text exchanges with Kimberly Guilfoyle, the US Envoy to Greece and former fiancé of Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr. On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal published an explosive report alleging that Kimberly Guilfoyle allegedly texted Kentucky MAGA donor Eric Deters to pay her $100,000 credit card bill, offering multiple favors in return. The favors included using her connection in the Trump administration to help Deters with his issues with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of Justice.” (10/07/26)
- US 30-year mortgage rate hits 7.49%, highest in nearly 3 years
Source: Yahoo! Finance
“U.S. mortgage rates climbed for a seventh straight week to 7.49%, their highest level since November 2023, according to Mortgage Bankers Association figures released Wednesday, according to Bloomberg. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate climbed 19 basis points for the week ending Oct. 2, bringing its total gain over the past three weeks to roughly half a percentage point — the steepest three-week advance since early 2023. Total mortgage application volume fell 4.2% from the prior week.” (10/07/26)
https://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/articles/u-30-mortgage-rate-hits-114328906.html
- Kagan, Soai share Nobel Prize in chemistry for work on homochirality
Source: Yahoo! News
“The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to two organic chemists for ‘for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis.’ Dr. Henri B. Kagan, 96, professor emeritus at Université Paris-Sud, France, and Dr. Kenso Soai, 76, professor emeritus at Tokyo University of Science, Japan, share the prize for their work, which could change the future of pharmaceuticals. … Some molecules like amino acids exist as two variants that are each other’s mirror image, but living organisms only contain one side of the image, which makes them homochiral. The other side is rarely found in nature. How this happened was a mystery to chemists. Kagan and Soai solved the puzzle.” (10/07/26)
https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/kagan-soai-share-nobel-prize-154301115.html
- Pharmaceutical Lobby Sues Trump Regime Over Most-Favored-Nation Pricing
Source: US News & World Report
“The pharmaceutical industry’s top lobby group on Wednesday sued to invalidate one piece of the Trump administration’s efforts to benchmark US drug prices to lower costs overseas in the Medicare health insurance program, arguing that it is an illegal overreach by the US government. … The PhRMA lobby group filed its lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia against Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the US Department of Health and Human Services he runs, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and two of its officials. The lobby group argues in its lawsuit that CMS, Medicare’s regulator, has stretched the authority of a program to test new pricing ideas into rewriting Medicare’s pricing structure without congressional action.” (10/07/26)
- UK: Reform investigates its employees, concludes they did nothing wrong
Source: Politico
“Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has published an internal investigation purporting to clear two senior aides who were caught in an undercover donations sting. The party is now threatening legal action against the TV company that produced the report alleging that they discussed how the party could receive a £500,000 donation from a fake U.S. donor. The review ‘found no evidence’ that either Dan Jukes, Farage’s long-term right-hand man, or James Orr, his policy chief, broke any laws. … A party official, granted anonymity to discuss internal matters, told POLITICO the pair’s futures will only be decided after the conclusion of a Metropolitan Police investigation. Scotland Yard is investigating multiple ‘potential offences’ arising from the broadcast of footage showing discussions about how the party could receive donations from an overseas donor and also asking a bogus company to pay for polls commissioned by officials.” (10/07/26)
- Trump regime proposes $70,000 fee for international students to work in the US
Source: Firstpost [India]
“In a latest move by the Trump administration to tighten restrictions on foreign students, the US Department of Homeland Security has proposed a $70,000 fee for international students seeking to participate in a programme that allows them to work in the United States. Under the proposed rule, colleges and universities would have to pay the fee for each international student entering the Optional Practical Training (OPT) programme. The programme enables foreign students to work in positions connected to their fields of study while completing their education or after graduation. International students are generally permitted to work through OPT for up to one year after completing their studies. Those graduating from certain science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programmes can qualify for an additional two years. Schools would be required to pay the $70,000 for each new student’s initial application to the program, and a $30,000 fee for each renewal.” (10/07/26)
- Kenya races to trace all contacts after first Ebola death, WHO official says
Source: United Nations
“Speaking in Nairobi on Wednesday, WHO Representative Dr. Neema Rusibamayila Kimambo said the coming days would be decisive in preventing community spread of the Bundibugyo strain of the virus, which has now claimed its first life in Kenya. The victim, a local man who had lived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for several years, fell ill there, where a deadly outbreak continues to spread in the east. He flew to Nairobi via Kampala and Entebbe in Uganda on 3 October, went straight to hospital and died in the Kenyan capital on Monday. Authorities have since identified the people who had come in direct contact with him from social contact and his admission to hospital. So far, there have been no other infections.” (10/07/26)
- Kosovo: Lawmakers elect a new president in a late-night vote to avert snap election
Source: WSLS 10 News
“Lawmakers in Kosovo elected economist and academic Justina Shiroka Pula as the country’s new president in a marathon late-night session, moments before a constitutional deadline that would have forced a snap election. The election late Tuesday was a significant moment in a political crisis in the small Balkan nation that has caused legislative deadlock for over 19 months and two early parliamentary elections. Just before Shiroka Pula was elected, lawmakers also approved a law limiting the powers of a special court in The Hague, Netherlands, which was set up to investigate and prosecute war crimes committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during the country’s 1998-99 war for independence from Serbia. … She will have to endorse the law limiting the power of the Hague court for it to become binding.” (10/07/26)
- Democracy [sic] Works When We Defend It
Source: OtherWords
by Nicholas Martinez“With less than a month before the midterm elections, attempts by President Donald Trump and his administration to keep certain Americans from voting will likely continue. Voting is how we get an equal say in the decisions that impact our lives, regardless of race, disability, zip code, language, or income. That’s why we need to ensure that every eligible voter can cast their ballot free from fear, intimidation, or unnecessary barriers. Anti-democratic forces might dominate the headlines, but they have not dominated the outcomes. That’s important. Our democracy is strongest when voters can fully participate. Our elections are strongest when election officials can do their jobs free from political interference. And our future is strongest when Americans believe that their voice matters.” (10/08/26)
- Whether It’s Banning Books or Preventing Macklemore From Touring, Silencing Artists Often Backfires
Source: CounterPunch
by Naveen Basavaraj“In 2003, singer Barbra Streisand tried to remove aerial photos of her home from the internet. But her efforts to take down the images only drove more people to seek them out. Two decades later, the Streisand effect has become a kind of internet maxim: Trying to bury something often ends up amplifying it. Working with colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University and George Mason University, I wanted to explore how this phenomenon plays out – and whether it’s simply internet folk wisdom or something that can be backed up with data.” (10/08/26)
- Crude Awakening
Source: The American Prospect
by Marueen Tkacik“A reviled ‘boligarch’ and his right-wing adversaries are engaged in a low-level war, but the only people who will feel the impact are the Venezuelan people.” (10/08/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/10/08/crude-awakening-alejandro-betancourt-venezuela-oil/
- Kill the Class Warfare
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob“Billionaires haven’t done anything wrong merely by earning great wealth. Typically, they’ve done something right. They’ve been industrious and entrepreneurial and helped people improve their lives. Typically, they earn their billions; which, incidentally, they don’t stuff under a giant mattress but invest further. This doesn’t stop the [proposed California wealth] tax’s demagogic proponents, like Ro Khanna, from claiming that the interests of the ‘donor class’ are inherently opposed to those of the ‘working class.’ Khanna wants government to privilege one ‘class’ over the other. But as Dmitri Bolt points out, neither should get a government-enforced advantage.” (10/08/26)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/10/08/kill-the-class-warfare/
- By Netanyahu’s Own Math, Gaza Is 3,900 September 11ths
Source: Antiwar.com
by Larry C Johnson“Benjamin Netanyahu likes to translate Israel’s grief into American. At the United Nations last month, he took the dead of October 7 and multiplied them by the ratio of America’s population to Israel’s. The 1,200 Israelis killed that day, he said, were ‘equal to 40,000 innocent Americans slaughtered in less than 24 hours. That’s 16 times 9/11.’ Per-capita comparisons are a perfectly legitimate tool. A small country feels a massacre more than a large one, and Americans should understand what October 7 meant to Israelis. But a method is only honest if you’re willing to apply it to everyone. So let’s apply Netanyahu’s method to the people his army has been killing for three years.” (10/08/26)
- Trump’s Iran war is costing us. Voters can make the GOP pay
Source: USA Today
by Rex Huppke“You can draw a direct line from the price at the pumps to President Donald Trump, who started a wholly unnecessary war with Iran, and the congressional Republicans who have done nothing to stop it.” (10/08/26)
- Repeal the Jones Act
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by William L Anderson“As any follower of Austrian economics knows, lawmakers—in any form—are usually the enemies of free markets and the prosperity that they bring. However, there are times when legislators manage to outdo themselves and pass laws that are absolutely destructive, and the Jones Act is one of them. A number of people have explained that, with most government programs, ‘the benefits are concentrated and the costs are diffused,’ and probably no legislation better reflects that truism than the Jones Act, which benefits a small number of people but lays costs upon the vast number of Americans that must pay for this legislation.” (10/08/26)
- Afghanistan, Again? Unlearned Lessons of America’s Longest War
Source: The Daily Economy
by Jeffery L Degner‘Congress rejected constitutional alternatives in favor of remaking a nation. Abroad, as at home, lawmakers cannot manufacture preferred social outcomes simply by spending more money.” (10/08/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/afghanistan-again-unlearned-lessons-of-americas-longest-war/
- Why Burglary Should be a Tort and Denting Fenders a Crime
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman“Legal rules affect behavior on many margins. They affect incentives to commit offenses, incentives to prosecute them, incentives to prevent them. For some offenses tort law may provide better incentives than criminal law on one of those margins and worse on another. If so, the question of what ought to be a tort and what ought to be a crime will be ambiguous, at least until we develop a theory good enough to predict not only the sign but also the size of such effects. In this post I will argue that, judged by the incentive for potential victims to prevent offenses, our rules are backwards. Things we treat as crimes, such as burglary, ought to be torts; things we treat as torts, such as auto accidents, ought to be crimes.” (10/08/26)
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/why-burglary-should-be-a-tort-and
- SCOTUS Ends Appeals of Former PA Judge Suspended Over Social Media Posts
Source: Jonathan Turley
by Jonathan Turley“This week, Judge Mark Cohen’s long, checkered judicial career came to an ignoble end. The Supreme Court denied his petition for certiorari to challenge the 2024 ruling by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that he was properly suspended over a litany of partisan social media posts while a sitting judge. Cohen is a former Democratic politician who ran unsuccessfully for Congress, but served for many years in the state House until defeated in 2016. In 2018, Cohen successfully ran for the Court of Common Pleas. After receiving a ‘Not Recommended’ rating from the Philadelphia Bar Association, he barely won the seat with the second-lowest vote total among the victors. During this time on the bench, Cohen continued to maintain his political public persona with social media posts that many found injudicious and unethical. In October 2024, the Pennsylvania Court of Judicial Discipline took the rare step of ejecting him from the bench and suspending him without pay over his Facebook posts.” (10/08/26)
- Haitian Resolve and the Limits of Resilience
Source: Common Dreams
by Maxime Valbrune“Over the summer, the Supreme Court gave the Trump administration free rein to terminate Temporary Protected Status for Haitian and Syrian immigrants, along with hundreds of thousands of TPS holders from other countries, limiting the accountability any administration will have for making determinations about TPS for the foreseeable future. Last month, a young pre-med college student named Pierre Damas Bel from Springfield, Ohio was found dead, by an apparent suicide. He was suffering depression brought on by the termination of TPS and being forced to wear an Immigration and Custom Enforcement-issued ankle bracelet. What happened to Damas Bel represents the real human cost of these inhumane policies. But sadly, I don’t believe we have reached the nadir of this administration’s cruelty.” (10/08/26)
- Is Our Age of Mass Incarceration Collapsing?
Source: Reason
by CJ Ciaramella“Researchers argue that a profound generational shift by millennials and Gen Zers away from criminal behavior is ending mass incarceration and will ultimately reduce the prison population by 50 percent over the next two decades, with or without accompanying policy reforms. … As older generations such as baby boomers and Gen Xers have aged out of criminal behavior, which typically peaks between the late teens and mid-twenties, far fewer millennial and Gen Z offenders have arrived to replace them.” (10/07/26)
https://reason.com/2026/10/07/is-our-age-of-mass-incarceration-collapsing/
- AI in education gives us a chance to use the best tech to fix our broken schools
Source: Fox News
by Jon Hage & Ed Pozzuoli“For years, social media platforms expanded with few meaningful protections for child safety, transparency, age-appropriate design, parental visibility or independent oversight. Only after mounting evidence of harm did policymakers begin responding in earnest. By then, millions of children had already been shaped by systems designed to maximize engagement. Artificial intelligence (AI) gives us a rare chance to do better.” (10/08/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/ai-education-chance-use-best-tech-fix-broken-schools
- Don’t believe government necessary
Source: Eastern New Mexico News
by Kent McManigal“Without government protection, irresponsible people would be on their own, facing those they violate: the property owners they cause harm to with their vandalism, trash, and theft. There are better ways of handling this than relying on a gang funded through theft and obsessed with making sure it faces no consequences of its own.” (10/07/26)
- Some College Grades Need to Go Up
Source: Law & Liberty
by Joshua T Katz“Campus free speech sees little improvement in FIRE’s annual report.” (10/08/26)
- In Brazil, Absolutely Nothing Changes
Source: Persuasion
by James Bosworth“Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, finished first in Sunday’s presidential election with 47 percent of the vote. He beat incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—known universally as Lula—on 45 percent, while his right-wing Partido Liberal (PL) also dominated the votes for both houses of Congress. Brazilians will now head for a runoff election between the two men on October 25. Despite being a country where citizens say they are angry at the status quo and want change, Brazil just voted in favor of… rerunning essentially the same political fight it saw in both 2018 and 2022. The country’s politics, in other words, is stagnant.” (10/07/26)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/in-brazil-absolutely-nothing-changes
- You Can’t Run From Christian Nationalism
Source: Liberal Currents
by Holly Berkley Fletcher“As the midterms approach, there has been much focus on how to break the Trump coalition. But one bloc is either written off as hopeless or folded into other categories, when it has long deserved its own strategy and approach. Without the support of white evangelicals, Donald Trump would have never become president and certainly would not have dominated our politics for a decade. And MAGA will never be defeated until liberals approach white evangelicals with a strategy focused on their distinctive characteristics.” (10/08/26)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/you-cant-run-from-christian-nationalism/
- These Minnesota parents were censored at a public meeting for saying school employees’ job titles
Source: Expression
by Matthew Harwood“A local school board in Minnesota has taken censorship to absurd heights. During the public comment period at Foley Public School Board meetings, concerned citizens are forbidden from saying not only the names of school staff and officials but even their titles. These revelations come from Blake and Katy DeMarais, concerned parents of a disabled and nonverbal special education student in the district. Over the summer, the parents complained that the district was failing to provide educational services to their son, only to be censored in a public meeting. … the Foley school board trampled on the DeMaraises’ First Amendment rights. When a school board opens a meeting to public comment, it can’t censor its constituents for criticizing school staff, much less simply naming them or mentioning their titles.” (10/07/26)
https://expression.fire.org/p/these-minnesota-parents-were-censored
- Is Palestine a Third Rail or Key to a Democratic Blue Wave?
Source: Informed Comment
by Alex Poppe“As the midterms draw near, I’ve been thinking about the role art plays in catalyzing political change. On September 12, the documentary film NAZA, which interrogates the systems used by the Israel government to target and calculate Palestinian civilian casualities in Gaza, was awarded the Special Jury Prize at the Venice International Film Festival after receiving a 25-minute standing ovation.” (10/08/26)
https://www.juancole.com/2026/10/palestine-third-democratic.html
- Private Electricity Grids Meeting the Data Center Moment
Source: Show-Me Institute
by Avery Frank“Private electricity grids, also known as consumer-regulated electricity (CRE), are a free-market policy idea that allows private entities to meet the demand of new large-load users like data centers entirely off the ratepayer-supported grid. Private electricity grids can benefit average ratepayers, developers, and government institutions like the Missouri Public Service Commission (MPSC) by shifting some of the risk and need for new electricity onto private investors, while also giving those investors the benefit of reduced regulation and quicker speed to operation. This has been an idea I have been beating the drum on for a long time. But recently, private electricity grids have started to be used in practice.” (10/07/26)
- AI Authoritarianism: A Government Without Constitutional Brakes
Source: Rutherford Institute
by John & Nisha Whitehead“Donald Trump promised to shrink the federal government. But what if Trump’s pledge to cut the federal work force wasn’t really about eliminating government bureaucracy but outsourcing it to the AI tech sector? What if Trump, with the backing of a self-serving industry eager to automate government, is instead helping to build a government that no longer needs as many human beings to operate it? Hundreds of thousands of federal workers are disappearing from the government payroll at the same time that Washington is racing to automate the work they once performed with artificial intelligence. … What we are watching unfold is the construction of a government that requires fewer human beings to carry out its will, fewer human beings to question its orders, and fewer human beings to stand in the way when efficiency collides with legality, morality or constitutional restraint.” (10/07/26)
- They Thought They Were Free: Are We?
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Richard M Ebeling“Americans celebrate the 250 years since the Declaration of Independence. They hail being a free people. They thank veterans and active military personnel for their service in keeping America free. But are we any more free in terms of the pervasive presence of government oversight, control, regulation, and planning of virtually every corner of everyday life than those Germans thought of themselves as free in the 1930s? Yes, we are not a dictatorship, but if both major political parties advocate and insist upon the same political paternalism, with the only difference being the forms and extent of it, how far is it, in fact, from living in a one-party state?” (10/07/26)
https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/they-thought-they-were-free-are-we/
- Here’s What to Do About Trump’s War Crimes
Source: Foreign Policy
by Anjali Dayal“U.S. President Donald Trump stood in front of the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 22 and made two explicit threats. He threatened to use military force in Latin America in service of U.S. interests, and he threatened annihilation for both the Iranian government and the Iranian people. The actions he proposed contravene both the international laws prohibiting war and the international humanitarian law that protects civilians in conflict. … the laws of war, themselves part of U.S. law, prohibit indiscriminate threats against a civilian population. Accordingly, Trump’s public deliberations about who to invade and who to annihilate were themselves crimes, committed in full view of thousands of diplomats and heads of state. … Many in the United States and around the world are desperate to see Trump and his top advisors held accountable for all this lawlessness but are at a loss for how to do so.” (10/07/26)
- Is “abundance” really dead?
Source: Semafor
by David Weigel“Democrats are feeling very good about next month’s elections, and the jockeying is already underway about which faction made it happen. Progressives hope to power a Democratic victory in the House that sees them pick up more seats — and influence — in the next Congress. When ‘abundance’ critics went after the movement, they were trying to win the argument then as well as the argument of the future. They saw a coalition of techies and liberals who were trying to prevent what they wanted: A move to the left and away from deep-pocketed donors. They view ‘abundists’ taking credit for Mamdani’s victory as opportunists trying to deny democratic socialists a major governing success. But the non-socialists have made a modicum of impact, even if ‘abundance’ has faded from Democrats’ lexicon.” (10/07/26)
https://www.semafor.com/article/10/07/2026/is-abundance-really-dead
- David J. Rush: Small Beans, Long Sentence
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp“I guess it’s the principle of the thing. If the feds let even one of their hirelings get away with stealing from the gang itself, even just a measly 14.6 minutes’ worth of the annual loot, more of those hirelings might decide they’d like a taste too, and next thing you know the gang’s leaders migh have to give up the thug life and get real jobs serving caffeinated beverages or pumping out septic tanks. Can’t have that! But it’s also the principle of the thing working from the other direction: If it’s not theft for the feds to steal the money from you, how is it theft for [David J.] Rush to steal the money from them? And Rush’s form of theft was arguably less violent than his bosses’ preferred way of doing things.” (10/07/26)
- Macron Goes Full Orwell: French President Makes One More Pitch for Censorship
Source: Jonathan Turley
by Jonathan Turley“French President Emmanuel Macron went full Orwell this week. While long the darling of Western media, Macron has been one of the most anti-free-speech leaders in the world. This week, he declared that ‘The so-called American ‘free speech’ today, which some people have promoted, is the opposite of free speech.’ Having Emmanuel Macron holding forth on free speech is akin to Joey Chestnut proselytizing on veganism. France has been in a headlong plunge into censorship and speech criminalization. These laws criminalize speech under vague standards referring to ‘inciting’ or ‘intimidating’ others based on race or religion. For example, fashion designer John Galliano has been found guilty in a French court on charges of making anti-Semitic comments in a Paris bar. In another case, the father of French conservative presidential candidate Marine Le Pen was fined because he had called people from the Roma minority ‘smelly’.” (10/07/26)
https://jonathanturley.org/2026/10/07/marcon-goes-full-orwell/
- When Did Obesity Become a Drug Deficiency?
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Joseph Varon“Faced with one of the biggest and fastest changes in human health, we’re treating the results as a condition that needs lifelong medication. The newest drugs are very effective, and that’s important to recognize. Semaglutide and tirzepatide have led to weight loss that older nonsurgical treatments rarely matched. Semaglutide has also reduced the risk of major heart problems in people with overweight or obesity and heart disease who didn’t have diabetes. Tirzepatide has greatly improved sleep apnea in people with obesity. These results are significant, and these drugs are much more than cosmetic weight-loss aids. That’s why we need to look closely at what’s happening now. The problem isn’t that these drugs don’t work; they clearly do. The real concern is that they might work so well that we stop asking why so many people need them in the first place.” (10/07/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/when-did-obesity-become-a-drug-deficiency/
- The Return of the Tudors
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson“Henry VIII was a nationalist in that he chafed at England’s being made to answer, to the degree it was obliged to do so, to the original European union—the elite, transnational, Continental bureaucracy known as the Catholic Church …. But Henry’s protean nationalism meant the same thing as the ersatz nationalism of today’s nat-pop right in the United States—for the executive, I get to do what I want, and for his apologists, We get paid. … Henry’s court was practically an Olympus compared to Donald Trump’s circle of imbeciles and moral midgets … but the Tudor entourage had its Steve Witkoffs and Jared Kushners, too, a pillaging aristocracy all too happy to profit from policy, using the seizure of church property and church funds to enrich itself.” (10/07/26)
- No One Gives A Fuck About October 7
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“No one cares. They used to, but then Israel spent three years showing the world why October 7 happened in the first place. After witnessing the cruelty and savagery of the state of Israel, people get it now. Everyone understands. After Hamas launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on the morning of October 7, there was an outpouring of love and sympathy for Israel from around the entire world. Every major landmark from the Eiffel Tower to the Sydney Opera House to the Empire State Building were illuminated blue and white in solidarity with the Israeli people. … Anyone who hadn’t been following the Israel-Palestine issue very closely was on Israel’s side that day. And then the bombs started dropping. And dropping. And dropping. And dropping.” (10/07/26)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/10/07/no-one-gives-a-fuck-about-october-7/
- The Donald’s Quixote Is Tilting at Iranian Windmills
Source: Antiwar.com
by David Stockman“Treasury Secy Scott Bessent clearly endeavors to be the second Pete Hegseth of Trump World, albeit via packing heat in the form of economic missiles rather than the kinetic kind. In fact, however, his ballyhooed Operation Economic Outcast actually amounts to the greatest windmill tilting operations since Don Quixote himself. So let’s cut to the chase right up front. To wit, Bessent’s premise that he can switch-off Iran’s military payroll and bring the regime to its knees by driving its oil exports to zero is wholly delusionary. The former (regime collapse) does not remotely follow from the latter (oil exports at zero), which for all practical purposes has already happened. So herein we endeavor to explain why cutting off Iran’s oil exports isn’t any kind of war-winning silver bullet at all.” (10/07/26)
- Global tipping point in a shipping chokepoint
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff“The concept of innocence shows up often in international law, and in recent weeks, a growing number of countries have rallied to defend it – in the narrowest part of the Red Sea, the Bab al-Mandab Strait. The waterway links Europe and Asia, helping ships avoid a long route around Africa. An expanding war to keep the strait open and safe for commercial ships (a historic right known as ‘innocent passage’) has now gone global, especially after Iran closed the nearby Strait of Hormuz in its war with the United States. Together, the two vital sea-lanes have served as a transit point for more than a quarter of seaborne petroleum. Recent violations of these ‘innocent’ waterways, embedded in rules for the freedom of navigation, have raised prices at the pump everywhere, even in oil-rich North America.” (10/07/26)
- What did Netanyahu know before Oct. 7?
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Blaise Malley“His re-election prospects are threatened as recent investigations detail alerts from abroad in the days and weeks before the 2023 Hamas attack.” (10/07/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/benjamin-netanyahu-october-7-warning/
- The One Issue Midterm Victors Must Solve? Corruption
Source: Brennan Center for Justice
by Michael Waldman“One of the most potent midterm election slogans was offered by the Republicans in 1946: ‘HAD ENOUGH?’ The GOP swept into power after years of New Deal dominance. We like to say that what counts is not what you are against, but what you are for. Not always, though. Sometimes ‘Had enough?’ is enough. Midterm elections often are waged as a rebuke to the party in control of the White House. Political scientists call this a thermostatic election. Voters adjust the temperature by turning the dial away from perceived overreaches. Sometimes the floor just drops out from under a political party. This could be a year when ‘Had enough?’ is enough. But at times candidates have an agenda, detailed or implicit. Those are the years that produce the biggest change.” (10/07/26)
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/midterm-issue-nobody-can-ignore
- Debt and Profit
Source: EconLog
by Valentin Boboc“An ordinary person can earn a paycheque, pay her taxes, cover living costs and mortgage payments, and perhaps even add to her savings — and at the end of the day she will still owe most of her mortgage. This is a normal state of affairs, and nobody finds it puzzling. Yet when a company reports profits alongside large amounts of debt, the reaction is often to question whether it’s really making money. After all, if a company is ‘truly’ profitable, why is it in debt? The short answer is that debt is not the opposite of profit. Loss is the opposite of profit. This imagined contradiction is easier to resolve once we recognize that profit is a flow and debt is a stock.” (10/07/26)
- Prettifying Executions Does Not Make Them Quicker or More Reliable
Source: Reason
by Jacob Sullum“After Tennessee unsuccessfully tried to execute Christa Pike last week, an ambulance whisked her to a Nashville hospital, where the condemned murderer became a patient in urgent need of lifesaving care. Should Pike recover from two botched administrations of pentobarbital, which left her unconscious and unable to breathe on her own, she might travel that road in reverse after she is well enough to be killed. That bizarre episode illustrates the perverse consequences of trying to disguise the brutal reality of capital punishment by dressing it in medical garb. Although most Americans say murderers like Pike should be executed, the method they prefer suggests they are squeamish about admitting what that entails.” (10/07/26)
https://reason.com/2026/10/07/prettifying-executions-does-not-make-them-quicker-or-more-reliable/
- SolutionsWatch, 10/08/26
- Checks & Balances, 10/07/26
Source: Checks & Balances
“Can Trump Take Control of the Midterms?” (10/07/26)
https://chkbal.substack.com/p/can-trump-take-control-of-the-midterms
- Politico Playbook Audio Briefing, 10/08/26
Source: Politico
“Knives out on MAGA Inc.” (10/08/26)
- Kibbe on Liberty, episode 407
Source: Free the People
“Socialist Affordability Is a Lie | Guest: Maggie Anders.” (10/07/26)
- The Chris Hedges Report, 10/07/26
Source: The Chris Hedges Report
“The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State (w/ Jill Lepore).” (10/07/26)
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-artificial
- Harrison Berger on The Kyle Anzalone Show
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Did Trump Consult AI Before Going to War?” (10/07/26)
- Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 10/07/26
Source: Antiwar.com
“Syria May Send Jihadists To Fight Ansar Allah in Yemen, Trump May Bomb Iran Before Midterm, and More.” (10/07/26)
- Gracearchy with Jim Babka, episode 171
Source: Gracearchy with Jim Babka
“How MAGA Plans to Steal the Libertarian Party Bus.” (10/07/26)
- Reason Roundtable 10th Anniversary Show
Source: Reason
“Join Nick Gillespie, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, and Matt Welch as they celebrate a decade of the show with a special live taping.” (10/07/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/10/06/live-reason-roundtable-10th-anniversary-show/
- The Fifth Column, 10/07/26
Source: The Fifth Column
“Europe Is Melting, Meritocracy Is Racist, and Everyone Gets Dignity.” (10/07/26)
https://www.wethefifth.com/p/europe-is-melting-meritocracy-is
- So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast, episode 284
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
“Venezuela is a cautionary tale w/ Jim Epstein and Germania Rodriguez Poleo.” (10/07/26)
- Reasonably Optimistic, 10/07/26
Source: Washington Post
“How America can recover from Trump-era politics.” (10/07/26)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/impromptu/how-america-can-recover-from-trumpera-politics/
- Ron Paul Liberty Report, 10/07/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“Punching The Panda: US Deploys New Missile System Near China.” (10/07/26)
- Reason Interview: James Heckman
Source: Reason
“Are Economists Measuring the Wrong Things?” (10/07/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/10/07/are-economists-measuring-the-wrong-things/
- Politico Playbook Audio Briefing, 10/07/26
Source: Politico
“Trump’s Latino coalition cracked.” (10/07/26)
- Fountainhead Forum, episode 496
Source: Fountainhead Forum
“Jan Bertram on the Free Cities Foundation, ‘free cities,’ and the situation in Germany.” (10/06/26)
- The Opinions, 10/07/26
Source: New York Times
“The Problem With Hegseth’s Pentagon.” (10/07/26)
- Politics Politics Politics, 10/06/26
Source: Politics Politics Politics
“Can You Trust Senate Midterm Polling? A Tale of Two Economies (with J.D. Durkin).” (10/06/26)
https://www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/p/can-you-trust-senate-midterm-polling
- The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 10/07/26
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Spirals Into Crazed Fury as GOP Pollsters Deliver Very Bad News.” (10/07/26)
https://newrepublic.com/article/216301/trump-spirals-crazed-fury-gop-pollsters-deliver-bad-news
- Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 10/06/26
Source: Antiwar.com
“Saudi Strike on Yemen Home Kills Family of Six, US To Deploy Anti-Ship Missile Near Taiwan, and More.” (10/06/26)